Lord Harris Captains England in Australia — 1878-79 Tour

Lord Harris was MCC's rising amateur star and Kent's captain. He had played in a number of Gentlemen-Players matches and was the establishment choice to lead the side.

The tour party of 12 sailed in October 1878. They played fixtures around Australia and New Zealand from November to March, with the only Test scheduled for early January at Melbourne.

George Robert Canning Harris, 4th Baron Harris, was 27, an Old Etonian and Oxonian, captain of Kent and just emerging as a leading figure at MCC. The 1878-79 tour was a private venture organised by the Melbourne Cricket Club, originally billed as 'Gentlemen of England (with Ulyett and Emmett)' — eight amateurs and two Yorkshire professionals. The tour produced the only Test match (3rd in history), at Melbourne in January 1879, which Australia won by 10 wickets after Spofforth's hat-trick. The most famous incident of the trip was the Sydney Riot of 8 February 1879. Harris returned to England with bruised feelings and published an open letter to the press in March 1879 condemning the conduct of the Sydney crowd. The letter, reprinted in Australia, caused a year of bad-tempered correspondence and very nearly ended Anglo-Australian cricket relations. The 1880 Australian tour of England proceeded only because Harris himself relented and agreed to a single Test at the Oval that September.

“We have been treated as no English team has ever been before.”

Harris returned to England a hardened cricket administrator. He played in the 1880 Test at the Oval, captained England in three further Tests in the 1880s, and became one of the most powerful figures in cricket administration over the next four decades. He was Governor of Bombay 1890-95 and remained a figure at MCC until his death in 1932.